WASHINGTON – First Lady Laura Bush vowed to show “solidarity with the women” as she took off yesterday on a surprise trip to Afghanistan – a danger zone where U.S. troops toppled the Taliban and where a new democracy is struggling to take root.

The first lady has talked of going to Afghanistan for a few years, but security jitters kept her trip on hold. She was slated to spend just five hours on the ground after a 15-hour flight.

“This has been in the planning for quite some time – we were very secretive about it. I didn’t tell anyone,” said Mrs. Bush, who didn’t even spill the beans to her own twin daughters until one day before.

Her husband found out “maybe a couple of weeks ago or last week” and is very excited because “he would love to go to Afghanistan,” she told reporters aboard her plane.

Unlike her husband – who kept his Thanksgiving 2003 visit to Iraq top secret until he was already en route home – Mrs. Bush publicly revealed her trip just before taking off from Andrews Air Force base.

The 9/11 attacks led directly to U.S. troops toppling the Taliban, who had provided training camps for Osama bin Laden and his terror thugs. The Taliban also as barred women from school and forced them to wear shapeless burqas.

“When I really realized the plight of the women under the Taliban, I also found that American women really stand in solidarity with the women in Afghanistan,” Mrs. Bush said.

“It’s very hard to imagine the idea of denying girls an education, of never allowing girls to go to school, and I’m sure men as well were struck with the horror of it, but I think particularly American women were.”

The first lady said her dream for Afghanistan is to again be the “beautiful garden country that it was” and “an educated country where all these little girls that started school two years ago” can go on to college.

Mrs. Bush recalled that back in the sixth grade, she was assigned to write a report on a country, and hers was Afghanistan.

She said she remembers thinking it was “very exotic, a very exotic place that you would love to visit.”

Asked if she thinks her trip will reassure Americans that the Afghan war was worth it, Mrs. Bush replied: “I don’t think anybody really doubts about going into Afghanistan – I don’t think Americans think, ‘Well gosh, I wish [girls] weren’t in school and the Taliban was still oppressing people.’ ”

The first lady’s crammed schedule included a speech at a women’s teaching institute, a meeting with businesswomen who have micro-enterprises to sell rugs and scarves, dinner with U.S. troops and a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.